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It has been awhile since I have posted anything, and that is mostly due to my major cleaning and organizing of the house. It was a long time over due, for sure!

I have been trying this recipe in my head for the past few weeks, and have finally decided to try it out. I love bread in almost any shape and form, and since I make all bread in our household, I end up slicing a piece and having it for breakfast with a slab of butter…this repeated over time is not the healthiest way to go. So, I set out to make a breakfast bread. Yes, I realize there is sugar in it, but hey! What is breakfast now days if it isn’t made with some sugar?!? Might as well make it homemade without preservatives and chemicals, and make it mostly whole grains!

Continue to mix on medium speed for approximately 3-4 minutes until batter remains sticky and very glutenous =)

Cover with plastic wrap or a wet tea towel and let rise for 45min to an hour.

On a well floured surface, press dough out into a rectangle. Now here is the fun part. You can customize this however you want! It’s your time to shine and to make it something you can personally brag about =) But here is what I did.

Take your chopped pecans (or your choice of nut), and press them into the dough.

Next, sprinkle the cinnamon sugar (ratio to make your own is 1:3 cinnamon to sugar). However much or little you want.

Roll up the dough.

Place it into a greased pan and let rise for 40 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees while 15 minutes still left of rising.

This is after it has risen. Place in oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.

after it has been baked, let cool completely on wrack

Showing you my idiotic mistake. Make sure you put it in the pan with the end of the roll on the bottom, or else it will look like this 😉

Once it has cooled, dig in! It’s really yummy!!! No butter needed.

This is a dense bread, so a little will fill you up quickly (thankfully!)
I hope you enjoy this! Let me know what you think and/or alterations you did to improve the taste and to make it uniquely yours!

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Hello! I have decided to start letting you all know (just in case you haven’t set down to do the math yourself) of making some things homemade. Somethings it is more expensive to make homemade, but a lot of times it really pays off with making it yourself.

Today I am going to do the math for you when it comes to making bread. There are so many different options out there for ingredients, but I am going to choose two recipes that I make weekly and show you the cost of those recipes.

These are the ingredients and the prices that I bought them for, therefore what I am basing my information on. If I have made a huge mistake please let me know

I bout Gold Medal Unbleached AP Flour from Walmart at $2.14

I’m pretty sure I bought this at Kroger for about $5 so that is what I will be using. Also this comes in whole wheat which I just ran out of the day before yesterday.

I will admit that King Arthur Flour is my favorite. It is really expensive in comparison to others, but it bakes really well, and they don’t bleach any of their flours. It comes in Bread Flour, White Whole Wheat Flour, Whole Wheat Flour, and All Purpose Flour. So when I have wiggle room in my budget I grab a bag of it.

Kroger Value Pure Honey I bought at $5.57

Bought this from Sam’s Club so long ago, but I’m pretty sure it was about $7 so that is what I am using

Kroger Active Dry Yeast bought at $2.59

I buy this in a 4lb pack at Sam’s Club for $9.98 so that would make one pound for about $2.50

Hope this can encourage you to start making your own bread! Even if there is only two or three living in a home, you can make 2 loaves and freeze one. When you are about out of the first loaf, take out the second one and set it out to unfreeze. Still tastes delicious!

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Snack time is a wonderful event in our household. We love to eat healthy, yummy snacks for our “in-between” meals. We experiment with different options, from hummus and peppers, to simple fruit salad, cheese sticks (a.k.a. chopped cheese of our choice), or we make sweet potato chips. We do simple stuff like that, but this is one snack we repeat often: Cucumber Tortillas! Oh they are so good!

A side note before I delve into it. I usually use neufchatel (a low fat cream cheese), and I would have like to use a reduced fat or low fat ranch, BUT we are a little low on groceries of that nature and I had to use what I found in the very back of the fridge 😉 We are in the middle of an ice storm and there is no way on this earth that I am dragging myself and my 10month old out in it!

With that stated, here we go:

What you need is an 8oz box of softened cream cheese, about 3 Tbs of ranch dressing, 1- 1 1/2 Tbs of Dill (I like

fresh dill, but we were out), sliced cucumber, and your choice of tortillas.

Mix the softened cream cheese, ranch, and dill.

Take a spoon and spread a thin layer of the dill mixture all over your tortilla.

Place your cucumber down the center. (I was making this one for my daughter. Usually I leave them as circle slices)

Couldn’t resist! My baby girl LOVES feeling independent while eating. This is an easy snack for her to pick up and chew and a fairly healthy one too. Granted it is not a tidy snack in the least bit, but then again what are bath tubs, vacuum cleaners and mops for anyway?

Here is how we adults eat ours =) Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

– 8oz package of cream cheese, softened

– 3 Tbs of ranch dressing

– 1 to 1 ½ Tbs of dill (depending on your taste)

– Sliced cucumber

– Tortilla shells

Directions:

Mix together cream cheese, ranch, and dill. Spoon mixture onto a tortilla and spread a thin layer all over the shell. Lay your cucumber down the center. Fold tortilla. Enjoy!

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I LOVE bread in just about any form. I am a carbohydrate junky! But since we switched to a whole food diet, I realized that a lot of breads were not as they appeared. My momma would make bread on occasions growing up, and I could eat an entire loaf by myself! (will have to get her recipe and post it here too)

Now, as a married woman and mother, I decided that I want to make my own bread again. That way I know what is going in it and I can make sure all the nutrients are there and haven’t been bleached out. I was looking at Pinterest for some bread recipes, and stumbled upon an AMAZING recipe that is so simple but so good!

And you want to know what? There are only FOUR ingredients in it! Crazy, I know: yeast, water, salt, flour. That is all! Here is the link to where I got it, but I modified it (a.k.a. halved it and made it into a loaf) to make it work for my family.

Mix water, salt, yeast together in a mixing bowl and let set for about 20 minutes.

You can do this by hand, but my lovely sister bought me this KitchenAid mixer, in my favorite color, and so I mix the bread in it =)

After the initial 20 minutes, add the flour.

Mix just until wet (so no dry ingredients visible). I usually have to add just a little bit of water to get it to a dough consistency.

Now cover the bowl in plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours.

This is what it will look like after two hours.

Grease a bread baking dish and set aside.

Flour your hands and pick up the dough and form into an oval bread shape (Haven’t a clue what else to call it). Don’t kneed it, just form into shape then place into greased pan.

Allow to rise for another hour. 45 minutes into rising, make your slashes in the top.
About 1/4 inch deep.

Also, 45 minutes into the rising, place a metal lipped pan into the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees.

(Can’t really take a picture of this part) After it has risen for an hour, place into oven. Take a cup of hot water, pour into metal lipped pan in the oven and close the door very quickly. This traps the steam in the oven and allows the bread to have a nice steam bath. Bake for 30 minutes.

Here you go! Delicious bread that is perfect for sandwiches or just plain butter, jam, apple butter, etc. It is AMAZING! My hubby, loves it too and takes at least a slice to work every day no matter if he is having a sandwich or not.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

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Andrew isn’t much of a breakfast eater, and I get tired of the whole cereal rout. Typically, Andrew doesn’t even eat breakfast, but then he is STARVING by around 10am, so he eats his lunch. Well, that is okay, but then he has no lunch to eat and has to work until 5, then commute 40mins home. He is one starving boy by that time.

So, I had a dilemma: how to keep Andrew from starving so he doesn’t eat everything and leave nothing for dinner when he gets home.

Duh! A smoothie! Andrew and I both love fruit, and always loved going to Smoothie King on our college campus when we could afford it. It is light, healthy, and fits right in with our whole foods diet.

There are MANY variations of smoothies, and it is honestly just a “whatever you feel like” kind of dish, but here is one the both of us love. On the plus side, even though it tastes creamy, it’s dairy free! (at least the way I make it).

What you need:

I use Almond milk, as a personal preference, but it does have more calcium than milk and is easier to digest!

For this smoothie, I use 1 mango, about 2 handfuls of cut up strawberries, I only use half a banana, and about 1/2 cup almond milk (or regular milk if you wish). I personally don’t put any sugar in it, but if I were I would probably put 1-2Tbs depending on how sweet you want it.

Cut up the mango, and strawberries (the night before) and place them in a freezer baggie. Put them in the freezer and you are good to go until the morning!

Before you have to go to work, school, etc. Take the mango and strawberries out of the freezer and place them in the blender/food processor (it would probably be easier if I had a blender since that is what they do, but I don’t so I make it work). You will have to break up the mango and strawberries by hand to make it easier on the blender.

Next add the banana. Why I usually only do half a banana, in my opinion, it can usually over power the rest of the fruits. By only putting in half, you still taste it, but it isn’t only a banana smoothie with sub-fruits!

Next, add in the almond milk. I would start with half a cup and then add more to get the texture you desire.Then you are done! Serve and be happy and healthy! This makes approximately ‘3’ cup servings so about 24oz.

This is great for even babies (over 9 months considering the almond milk, also be careful because strawberries can be a serious allergen). Our daughter loves these. Especially when she is teething. The cold feels good on her gums!

Servings: Approximately 3 8oz servings
Calories per Serving: about 75.5

Night before, prepare mango and strawberries and place them in a freezer bag then into the freezer. In the morning, take out the frozen fruit, break apart with hands and place into the blender. Add banana, and ½ cup almond milk (and sugar if desired) and blend until smooth. Add almond milk until desired consistency.